‘Parking Garage Rally Circuit’ has always been a silly idea, but its new ‘European Tour’ DLC proves it respects its audience more than most.

Walaber Entertainment

Parking Garage Rally Circuit is arguably the best arcade racing game of the last five years. The fact that it’s the brainchild of a solo dev, Tim “Walaber” FitzRandolph, only makes it more impressive, and with this month’s European Tour, he’s rewarded fans with the best DLC that $5 can buy.

The game’s all-new European Tour expansion, released on April 27, offers a new lineup of eight parking locations, taking in the sights of places like Montpellier, Geneva, Hamburg, Paris, and Naples. For me, the prospect of drifting around somewhere I actively hate — York Castle Car Park — sent me into a weird existential crisis.

I live about 45 minutes away from York Castle Museum and Clifford’s Tower. It’s a real sod to get to, it’s on the edge of one of the U.K.’s most active flood plains, the bays are too small, and it’s $6 an hour to leave your car there. And yet, as an actual level in an actual game made by an actual person, it’s completely changed my perspective.

York Castle is far from the first place I’d expect PGRC to visit in the U.K.; I think Walaber’s from Glendale, so I have no idea what could have possessed him to say “you know what everyone needs? A highly charged rally experience around an irregular area of asphalt that circles a relatively underwhelming keep and the local branch of Fenwick.” And yet, here I am, proved wrong by a solo dev’s genius.

The job Walaber has done capturing this very specific parking lot feels like more than just an in-depth session on Google Street View. I never thought I’d see something so permanent in my world through the joy of the Sega Saturn lens. The fact that he incorporates modern double-decker buses and an underground section reminiscent of York Dungeon — then introduces the city’s infamous fog as the main hazard of the second lap — led such a debilitating case of deja vu that I had to restart the race after plowing into the tower.

Knowing he did such a good job of York only makes everything that follows more enjoyable. While I can’t speak to the historical and geographical accuracy of the other circuits — apart from Turin, by way of 1969’s The Italian Job, as the Lingotto gets its moment in the sun (“try putting your foot down, Tony, they’re really getting rather close”) — each circuit feels more exciting than it really should, even as the DLC steadily becomes more ridiculous with every new location.

It was already clear in 2024 that Parking Garage Rally Circuit respects its audience, both by giving them some of the tightest controls and arcade racing mechanics in recent memory, but also because it doesn’t hide behind its silly base concept as a core form of entertainment; it just complements a precise and nearly flawless racing engine under the hood. European Tour is more of the same, though with the added luck — for me, at least — that the source material is on point.

The risk-vs-reward system of chaining your boosts to build momentum is perfect for the game’s tried-and-tested leaderboard format; the cars are predictable and dependable, even during those shaky first attempts at new courses; the ways the new locations evolve is more inventive than ever; and, to top it all off, The Holophonics extend their aptly chaotic ska soundtrack with nine all-new songs.

You can get the European Tour DLC for 20% off on Steam until May 4; if you’ve not played Parking Garage Rally Circuit at all, you can get the base game and DLC for just under $13.